Greenwald: American Media 'Neutered, Impotent, Obsolete'

Glenn Greenwald, the former Guardian newspaper journalist who helped break the story about the National Security Agency's secret phone and Internet surveillance program and the identity of leaker Edward Snowden, took aim at American journalists, and The Washington Post in particular, calling them "pro-government" and "neutered, impotent, and obsolete."

During a discussion about his Pulitzer Prize-winning reports, Greenwald told the radio and TV program, "Democracy Now," "I don’t think there's any secret about the fact that the journalism I advocate for and engage in is controversial among a large klatch of what I would call 'establishment journalists,'" the Daily Caller reported.

"I've been a very vociferous critic of how the establishment media in the United States conducts itself, and that's created a lot of animosity, even before the Edward Snowden story."

Greenwald singled out The Washington Post, which also broke the NSA story, for its style of reporting.

"The editors at The Washington Post are very much old-style, old-media, pro-government journalists, the kind who have essentially made journalism in the U.S. neutered and impotent and obsolete," Greenwald said, according to the Daily Caller.

He added, "And the reason I went to The Guardian is because they have a history in the past of deviating from this sort of very conservative, pro-government line and doing reporting that's in the public interest."

This is not the first time Greenwald took a swipe at the American media.

Earlier this week, in released excerpts from his new book, "No Place to Hide," he made similar comments. The book, which details the hours and days surrounding Edward Snowden's public confession that he was the NSA leaker, touches on Greenwald's views of the American media based on its immediate reaction to the revelations.

"Rather than dealing with me as a reporter, the hosts preferred to attack a new target: Snowden himself, now a shadowy figure in Hong Kong. Many U.S. journalists resumed their accustomed role as servants to the government," he wrote.